


One Last Cigarette

by lemoninagin



Series: flip your lucky for love [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bottom Lance (Voltron), Breathplay, Cigarettes, Coming Untouched, Fist Fights, Getting Back Together, Heart-to-Heart, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Break Up, S&M, Sequel, Sloppy Makeouts, Smoking, Withdrawal, cigarette burns, that season one slow burn of awkward reunion, way too many smoke metaphors but what else did u expect, with a side of strange smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 13:40:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13682832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemoninagin/pseuds/lemoninagin
Summary: Life is weird and fragile, the universe is cold and cruel. The whole thing launches Lance into an existential crisis, has him thinking about how he can lose everything he’s ever had in the time it takes to flick on a lighter.And they’re living on borrowed time as it is.





	One Last Cigarette

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this sequel a long ass time ago because I received a lot of great feedback for mi corazón that I wasn’t expecting, and I really wanted to give a more proper ending for Keith and Lance. Thank you all so much, all of your comments have been overwhelmingly beautiful. I never thought that I’d still be receiving such positive feedback even though I wrote it almost a year ago now. I’m not usually one to do sequels, but hopefully I managed to capture the exact atmosphere again.
> 
> Title inspired from an entirely different genre of song this time, [“Last Cigarette” by Darwin Deez](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2aEqcQT0Ts). One drag, so good but I shouldn’t have ;)
> 
> Happy v-day everyone <3

History repeats itself, Lance thinks, splaying his body over Blue’s cockpit chair and running his hands over her smooth interior. He feels an empathetic throb behind his temples, but it doesn’t make him forget about the phantom ones in the scar tissue lining his thighs.

 

It’s a little too much, too soon, and he curls into her, both physically and emotionally. If he had ever thought that a giant, sentient robot lion in space would be the first one to console him after his last year of inner turmoil, he may have considered quitting drinking sooner.

 

As it stands, that’s what’s happening, and he just has to accept that. _Accept it_ , he thinks bitterly, _accept it just the way I had to accept that Keith was never coming back_ , and Blue strings comforting tendrils through his mind.

 

But Keith _did_ come back—or more like, they were thrown together into some horribly unfunny, twisted fate of irony where they were being forced to cooperate after all that happened between them.

 

As far as Lance is concerned, Keith ruined everything. Lance had been perfectly fine with his scars as his only physical reminder, but this isn’t something he can deal with as easily. He’s forced to see the real Keith every day now for who knows how long, and it’s worse than even having to interact with him—they have to _get along_ to a certain degree to form Voltron, or literally the entire universe will be fucked.

 

Lance groans, rubbing at his temples and feeling the beginnings of a migraine just thinking about it. He has the worst luck ever.

 

Living and eating with Keith, talking and fighting together, all while Keith walks around like he owns the place. Too calmly in Lance’s opinion, unbothered like nothing unspeakably awful happened between them.

 

And that’s just so much _worse_ than Lance’s fading memory of him instead.

 

“I hate this,” Lance mutters into the seat of the chair, which his face is pressed into as he pouts. “Stupid Keith. Why does he have to be so pretty when he does everything? This would be so much easier if he was ugly.”

 

Keith had taken to avoiding him those first few days on Arus, but lately, he’d been attempting to approach Lance, _alone_. Lance had been okay with being avoided, as it was easier to continue being impartial from a distance.

 

But when the time came where Keith may have been considering addressing the severely large elephant in the room, Lance found that he couldn’t stand there and listen. He took off every single time, getting cold feet and sprinting somewhere on the ship where he knew Keith wouldn’t bother him.

 

Keith probably would consider searching Blue for him _first_. It’s not the best place to go, but it’s the closest for now—and today is a particularly bad day. He’d gone straight from their bonding exercises to Blue, and she’d opened for him without question, like some surrogate space mom.

 

After everything, after all this time has passed, he doesn’t think there’s much else that really needs to be said. There’s no point for Keith to talk to him about anything. He now knew that Shiro and Keith were both safe, alive, and—relatively speaking—okay. Lance was relieved.

 

There was nothing more to be resolved, he tries to convince himself, yawning. Blue weighs him down with reassuring thoughts until his limbs feel heavy, and his eyelids drop of their own accord.

 

When he falls asleep in Blue’s seat, he dreams about fire, whisking him away and smothering him into ash. He dreams of Keith, staring off at a sunset with his back turned to him on the Garrison roof, looking serene as the softly blowing breeze plays with his hair.

 

Dream Keith turns around to invite him over, but where his eyes should rightfully be, are only vortexes of pitch black smoke seeping from empty sockets. It billows around them, choking Lance until he drops to his knees, wheezing on the cold, hard ground.

 

When Lance wakes up, he’s on the floor, coughing and scrambling against the tile.

 

History repeats itself—  

 

Just like this.

 

* * *

 

The way Keith seems ready to bite his head off at any given moment, pisses Lance off.

 

So yeah, sure, _maybe_ he’s been provoking him a bit lately just for the fuck of it. And yeah, maybe Shiro being there is making Lance feel more on edge than ever for some reason, so it seems likely that Keith’s picked up on that, too.

 

It doesn’t mean Keith had to storm away from him last week because he took the last serving of Hunk’s cooking when Keith obviously wanted it, or that it was right of Keith to turn his shower water scalding hot when Lance remarked that his ass was looking flatter than it used to (it’s not really, and frustratingly enough, looks like it could be even bigger from increased muscle definition) when he got annoyed seeing him in just a towel.

 

Alright, so maybe there was more than a _bit_ of provoking. So sue him. Regardless, Keith was still acting differently than he remembers.

 

He wasn’t usually one to get angry that quickly over stupid, mundane things that didn’t really matter. He generally didn’t squirm around like he does now, when they’re grouped up for a mission meeting, shifting from leg to leg, constantly doing something annoyingly distracting with his hands and feet, like tapping or jiggling them.

 

It’s unusual, Lance thinks, the way he twitches and jerks sometimes after practice, as though looking to do something with his hands that doesn’t involve beating the shit out of someone. Lance tries not to think of all the times Keith often stares in his direction when that happens, as if Lance might be involved with what he’d rather be doing with his hands.

 

Lance gulps, trying to violently push away that thought. He’s cleaning shit with _Coran_ , for _chrissakes_.

 

“Oh, Lance, before I forget,” Coran luckily pulls him from his wandering thoughts, pausing in cleaning the cryopod across from him, “I have something here for Keith that I wanted you to give to him.”

 

“Huh?” Lance says, turning around in a flash from wiping off the glass. With a shake of his rag, he spouts moodily, “Why the quiznak do you want _me_ to give something to Keith?”

 

Coran bristles at the language he uses, but doesn’t correct him, just frowns disapprovingly like a disappointed father might. “I assumed you were, you know, fairly close,” he clarifies, sounding more unsure now, “He stayed by your pod almost the entire time while you were recovering the other quintant...”

 

 _He’s lying_ , the more distrusting part of Lance thinks, but his heart flutters in his chest.

 

“He did?” he asks, a little too eagerly, dropping his arm.

 

“Oh, yes, I believe it was Shiro who—mind you, was here about as often—was eventually able to coax him out for some food at one point, but he went right back afterwards.” Coran rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet, smile wide and unconcerned about the implications of what he’s saying. “I remember thinking it was peculiar, since you two have had your fair share of differences, dare I say.” He claps Lance on the back so hard he almost falls over. “But, no matter. I see you’re already working past that. Good for you!”

 

It sours his attitude to hear Keith did that about as much as it elates him. He quickly deflates.

 

Though Lance claimed he’d forgotten, he’d been having a hard time recently trying to move past this new confusing memory of Keith plaguing him since he’d gotten out of the cryopod. It was something fuzzy around the edges, something that made him warm like sitting on the beach in the noonday sun, or like waking up wrapped in lazily drifting smoke sticking to his bare skin.

 

Keith, smiling softly at him, as Lance was vaguely aware of letting something sweet slip past his lips when Keith asked if he was okay. Keith, cradling him in his arms and looking at him with concern when he was injured.

 

Keith, griping about having a moment that Lance claimed to forget.

 

Lance shakes his head. “What is this stuff?”

 

He squints at the bottle Coran hands him, trying to make out what the brown, floating liquid inside is even for. The reflection of his disgusted face stares back at him from the glass. It looks like some type of medication, but he can’t recall Keith acting sick.

 

“Keith admitted to me about having some issues with particular Earthen substance cravings, as I’m sure you’re already aware,” Coran says discreetly behind his palm, “Or more like, I drew it out of him after he yelled at me when I merely asked for help with some things around the ship. He felt guilty about it, so I offered to whip him up something that might help take the edge off, so to speak.”

 

Lance’s blood runs cold. The bottle slips from his hand, and his quick reflexes are the only reason he manages to catch it at the last second. Coran is explaining something, something about doses and instructions that Lance only half coherently takes in.

 

The ringing in his ears is still strong when he leaves later, headed towards Keith’s room with the bottle clenched tightly between his fist.

 

* * *

 

Lance wishes he could dramatically swing open Keith’s door, but he can’t, so he stomps through the sensor in a manner that he assumes is close enough to explaining how he feels.

 

“You didn’t quit smoking,” he accuses loudly, startling Keith from the middle of practicing a form.

 

Keith considers him with a raise of his brows, breathing ragged from training, but doesn’t respond. Lance is shaking with barely restrained rage.

 

“That means,” Lance draws the words out slow, cutting like the sharp edge of that stupid knife Keith always carries, “You went to town.”

 

Keith lowers his hands from his stance.

 

Lance strides right up to him, practically spitting into his face, “You went to town sometimes to pick up some fuckin’ stupid ass _smokes_ ,” Keith’s mouth drops open, as if he somehow can’t comprehend how fucked this is, “When you couldn’t, you couldn’t even—”

 

Lance doesn’t know how to complete that thought. Couldn’t even bother to say hello? To come back and let him know he was at least _alive_?

 

Lance draws in a long breath, deciding to ask in a less hysterical voice, “That’s exactly what you did, isn’t it?”

 

Keith rubs his arm, looking more through him, than at him. “I, uh—”

 

“It’s a yes or no question, Keith.” Lance doesn’t even try to contain the roll of his eyes.

 

There’s full offense written on Keith’s face as Lance looms over him, puffing out his chest and using his mere inch height difference to make himself seem bigger.

 

“ _No_ ,” Keith throws back, forcing Lance out of his space with a light, but firm nudge to his shoulder, “I had to go cold turkey because I was lost in the fucking desert without transportation for a long time, you _asshole_.”

 

“So what?” Lance flutters his hand over Keith’s form, because in this moment, his very presence offends him. “Obviously, you started again somehow. I don’t think nicotine withdrawal lasts this fucking long, buddy.”

 

“If you think,” Keith advances towards him, and Lance doesn’t shirk away. He stands his ground, even though with every step closer, Keith makes that electricity between them that much more palpable. “If you think for one _goddamn second_ that I was going back to O’Hara’s from time to time just to be a dick and party without you, while what was really happening is that I was _barely surviving_ those first few months, you can just go fuck yourself forever, _pal_.”

 

Lance tucks away the guilt he feels from that one far, far down, too blinded by his hurt now to process it all.

 

“I’ve been _trying_ , dude,” Lance says, a quick bite to his words, palm thrown across his forehead in feigned exasperation. He takes a step right back into Keith’s space. “I’ve been trying, but it’s not the same as when _you do it_.”

 

Keith furrows his brows. His eyes are dark coals that expand, as if remembering some far off memory, something so distant it’s likely consumed by smoke.

 

“What are you—”

 

“You know?” Lance’s glare deepens. “Cause you’re always _fucking me_ , Keith.”

 

Keith is close enough now that Lance can jab a finger to his chest, so he does.

 

“You’re just…” Lance says, jabbing once, twice.

 

Keith lets him, standing solid, steady and watching the tip of Lance’s finger as it digs into his chest. Lance knows he’s losing it, knows the tone of his voice has become less accusatory and now wandering into the territory of desperation, anguish.

 

He lets his lungs expand as much as possible, lets the oxygen spike in his veins before he blows out one last long, frustrated torrent of words, “You’re just always _fucking me_!”

 

It comes out as more of a whine, almost pleading, and Lance clamps his jaw shut. Keith’s response is varied. He flushes about as much as he sets his own jaw tight and clenches his fists.

 

“You know what? Fuck off, Lance.” Keith is as stunningly beautiful as he ever is, especially as he curses Lance out and pushes him, and Lance hates that—hates it more than anything. “Just shut up _,_ shut up _,_ shut the _fuck up_ ,” and Keith is shoving him, forcing him back until Lance hits the wall with a sharp gasp.

 

He’s about matching Lance in his trembling, drawing closer and then knocking into him like he can’t make his mind up about whether to push him away or let him in for once.

 

But history always repeats itself—just like this.

 

Keith throws his hands up, cornering Lance against the wall. His face is mere inches away, and Lance can make out every line of repressed hurt seeping from Keith to match his own. The warmth of Keith’s breath hangs, like the balmy air of the beach after a terrible thunderstorm, gently blowing against Lance’s lips.

 

“God,” Keith looks towards the ceiling, then back at Lance, and slams his palms, arms locked straight, on either side of Lance’s shoulders. He looks tired, weary, and more aged in that moment. “Just _shut your fucking mouth already_.”

 

They both freeze. Keith is too close now, caught in place with his hands inching in towards Lance’s throat, and Lance isn’t sure whether he’s about to be strangled or eaten alive.

 

Keith’s fingers give that tell-tale twitch. The spark of anger leaves his eyes, trailing out like wisps of disappearing smoke. His gaze softens, and slowly, he drops his hands.

 

But he doesn’t move away. His palms land lightly on Lance’s upper thighs, sitting, gripped more where hipbone meets groin. This time, Lance thinks, letting him dig his shaking fingers into his thighs instead, whatever he’s trying to gain is still as fleeting as ever.

 

Keith’s hands are fire and lightning wherever they make contact, even through the barrier of cloth. It feels like centuries since they’ve touched, since Lance has longed to be embraced within the warm curves of his body for just that one second more.

 

And now that he’s finally getting what he wants, he finds that he can’t accept it as easily as he’s always hoped.

 

This is unfair. It was unfair of Keith then to bring him to such a high only to leave him dry, and it’s unfair of him now to dare touch him this intimately after so achingly long, and—and it’s all just _so fucking unfair_ , because this close, he can still _feel it_ , goddammit.

 

Lance can still feel the waves of concern, the emotions brimming from Keith like smoke that always threatens to choke him in the best and worst way possible.

 

Lance can barely process the thought of how close they are, how long it’s been, how fucking _angry_ he still is, all at the same time. His temper simmers under his skin, a time-bomb at the edge of going off for over a year now.

 

Whether a conscious thing or something more second nature to him, Keith moves his grip lower, rubbing his thumb over where he knows that first mark of claiming Lance lies. They’re extremely sensitive emotional pressure points, and Keith is near to dragging him to his knees.

 

Lance sure as hell doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore either when he wraps his arms around Keith’s waist, and pulls him in tight. He buries his face into Keith’s hair and inhales as deeply as he can, but it doesn’t smell the same as he remembers.

 

“Lance…” Keith lets out a long, shaky breath.

 

His eyes raise to Lance’s, uncurling himself from the shelter of his chest as he pours salt into his oh-so-tender wounds. Tension rises right back up into Lance’s shoulders. Keith keeps pressing on his scars, is tracing them over the fabric with acute accuracy, and he—

 

Lance fights to pull air into his lungs.

 

He knows _exactly_ where they all are.

 

“Lance, I’m…” Keith sounds hollowed out, voice cracking, “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m so sorry, please let me—”

 

“Don’t,” Lance snaps, jerking abruptly out of the spell that Keith always casts over him and shoving him away, “Don’t, don’t. Just don’t.”

 

He can’t stand it. He can’t put up with Keith suddenly touching him like this again.

 

“Lance, come on...”

 

Hurt wrings Keith’s face into lines Lance instantly hates—the crestfallen drop of it, hopefulness etched there extinguishing like a flame being smothered. Keith is a flurry of emotion as much as he is, and Lance doubts by the way he keeps flexing his hands into fists, that the nicotine withdrawal is helping.

 

“We’re a team now, no matter what our past…” Keith falters, starting a weak attempt at some sort of leadership speech in order to stay disconnected from the situation. Jerking fingers reach out for the hem of Lance’s shirt, or maybe simply for any part of him.

 

Lance shuffles out of reach, and Keith must decide against trying to sound more distant, because he says quietly, sadly, “...We can’t keep going on like this.”

 

 _Try me_ , Lance thinks, but doesn’t vocalize. He’s attempting to glare, though he has a feeling it’s falling way past short. Keith’s tone is flickering and weak, a light about to go out forever. Lance is transported back in time to a smoky bar with too-loud music, to a grungy, ignored alleyway lined with itchy, itchy brick.

 

Keith raises his voice the smallest fraction. “God, can’t we at least talk about—”

 

“Oh, no, no, no,” Lance laughs hollowly as he straightens his back against the wall and pushes himself from it. “Hell _no_. You don’t get to do this, say this, after everything. No. _Nope_. Cause I’m not listening.”

 

“Lance,” Keith staggers away, looking crushed like Lance just revealed that he broke his knife, “I, please—”

 

Even though it’s far past childish, Lance claps his hands over his ears. “Nope, not listening, so it’s not happening.” He turns sharply on his heel and heads towards the door. “We’re done here, anyway.”

 

He pulls out the bottle Coran gave him, tossing it at Keith while barely looking at him.

 

“Coran said take two drops a day, and you’ll be your hunky-dory sulking mullet self again in no time, I’m sure,” Lance explains, foot on the sensor. “The cravings should subside by tonight.”

 

Keith is pale, small and silent in the middle of the over large room. He raises a finger as if in retaliation, then drops it.

 

Lance shakes his head with one last disgruntled huff. “You’re welcome,” he sneers, and then he’s out the door.

 

Lance clutches his chest as he leaves, feeling suddenly short of breath. The phantom touch of caring fingers is painfully vivid in his mind whenever he feels his thighs rub together as he walks away.

 

Everything hurts _._

 

* * *

 

Keith gives him a black eye a few days later, but it’s okay, because seeing Keith get a split lip and bloody nose not long after that, makes it all totally worth it.

 

It’s not completely on purpose, nor could it really classify as an accident. It was just something that happened.

 

They’d been assigned to train hand-to-hand at Coran’s insistence that they were somehow great friends now, with Hunk keeping score and to be their referee (at Allura’s insistence, since she at least had the common sense to realize she shouldn’t agree with Coran). Things went smoothly at first, even though Lance had never been that great in hand-to-hand, well—anything.

 

And by smoothly, he means they were a kicking, biting, _no mercy_ mess the second Lance entered the training room. Smoothly, in the sense that he was finally being given the opportunity to have a satisfying physical outlet, and what better way to start than by taking it out on Keith.

 

Keith may have been angling for something with more style, more finesse, but Lance didn’t want him to have the satisfaction of a fair fight. He’d charged upon entering the room, no warning, no words, and swept Keith’s legs out from underneath him. After that, they both seemed to decide that anything was fair game.

 

But Lance forgot a very vital, key piece of information about Keith.

 

Keith didn’t play to lose, nor did he ever give up. He trained often with _Takashi Shirogane_ back at the Garrison, and apparently had some mysterious, scrappy street upbringing.

 

In short, Lance was a fool.

 

This was far from Keith’s first dirty fight, and no matter what the situation, Keith Kogane always comes out on top.

 

Keith raises himself up fast like being knocked on his ass was nothing, jabbing rapid punches back at him with all the agility and power of a practiced kick boxer. Lance dodges one arm, but takes the brunt of another, sharp knuckles right to the gut. At one point, he thinks he manages to bite either Keith’s arm or neck, but he gets too distracted by the aftertaste of Keith’s flesh, leading to his downfall resulting in a black eye and a renewed thirst for revenge.

 

Keith brutally wrenches one of Lance’s arms behind his back and slams him up against the wall, grinding his chin into the hard tile until it makes Lance think about being fucked into brick. Lance kicks back at him, hitting him hard enough in the thigh that he knows Keith is surely thinking about the dangerously close pressure to his groin.

 

Faintly in the distance, he registers Hunk sounding a whistle, which he ignores. He knows Keith’s instinct will be to automatically loosen his grip, and he’s a bigger fool for trusting that Lance won’t take advantage of that.

 

Lance rounds on Keith the second he’s free, grabbing a fistful of his hair and yanking until he cries out and almost falls to his knees. Lance thinks only one thing as he licks blood from his lips, sending the knuckles of a fist he knows nothing about throwing properly towards Keith’s bewildered face.

 

This was a bad idea, because Keith fights exactly opposite of the way he smokes.

 

Keith disarms him in seconds flat, easily grasping Lance’s wrist mid-punch and using his momentum to drag him forward onto his stomach, rather than flipping him into the air. It’s a split second action, and Lance is being crushed with weight mere moments later, but his head is spinning _why_ repeatedly at the fact Keith didn’t take the opportunity to flip him to his back, which would have granted him an instant win.

 

“Fold,” Keith says gruffly, pinning him, but Lance refuses. He twists and jerks until the sockets of his shoulders give several protesting pops.

 

He thinks maybe Keith just prefers to see him suffer like this, always humiliated and fucked on the ground.

 

“No,” Lance protests, because fuck that. He knows in the back of his mind there’s probably no way out of this, but—fuck it all.

 

“Goddammit.” Keith’s breathing is loud and raspy at his ear as Lance continues squirming. “Hunk!” he grunts over his shoulder, “You’re his best friend, right? Make his stupid ass fold, would you?”

 

Lance can only see Hunk’s shoes as he shuffles into his line of sight.

 

“I dunno, it might be bad if I interfere. Lance can be a biter.”

 

Lance can make out Hunk responding to Keith, and he gives a strained laugh, because it’s obvious that Keith most definitely already knows this particular fact.

 

Keith twists his wrist harder.

 

“Anyway, it looks like you’re already on your way to taking care of it,” Hunk continues encouragingly, “His twiggy arms are weak points, so keep on bending. I believe in you!”

 

Twisting his head, Lance smothers a smile into the tile when he looks up in time to see Hunk giving Keith a thumbs up, causing him to let out an exasperated sigh.

 

Hunk immediately bends down to Lance’s level to encourage him as well, pumping a fist into the air, “Lance, don’t let him have you, dude. You’ve got this, you’re almost there! Flip him, man! Flip him!”

 

“Thanks, Hunk,” Lance gasps, each word driving daggers into his rib cage, “but I’m going to kill him after I do it.”

 

It’s Keith’s turn to laugh at that, and what Lance would give to be able to twist some body part of his. Hunk backs far, far away when Lance begins thrashing wildly and Keith has to tackle him back down. There was a moment or two where he successfully managed to get his hips off the floor a few inches, and that only spurs him on more.

 

“Quit moving around,” Keith warns, pressing him tighter to the ground, one elbow digging sharply into his back with his nails marking crescents into his wrists, “and _fold_.”

 

“ _Never_ ,” Lance hisses, chest compressed too much to really say anything else.

 

The heat of it all is making Lance’s senses and logical thoughts fuzzy, sick with some twisted desire in the moment to have Keith strip him right here, to take him hard against the floor as punishment.

 

He thinks about how he’d do it in a heartbeat, how if Keith wanted him to fold with his pants around his ankles, then maybe he’d be all too happy to oblige.

 

Keith jabs his elbow further between his shoulder blades, and Lance arches his back, yelping with pain. Keith is blissfully unaware of the strain in Lance’s jeans, of the way Lance almost moans when he straddles over his back and seats himself right above the curve of his ass.

 

“ _Fold for me, Lance_ ,” Keith just about purrs, a hot, breathy whisper that wisps out and curls against his ear. Lance swears that he feels lips or teeth graze the shell of it the tiniest bit, but Keith pulls away too fast for him to comprehend when exactly he started getting this turned on.

 

There’s pressure against Lance’s hips as Keith rocks down, locking his thighs around him. He’s rubbing him nicely against the floor as he does, and Lance is starting to think maybe he isn’t as unaware as he’s assumed. At the same time, Keith gives his arms an achingly satisfying jerk up.

 

“F-fuck,” Lance groans, cheek pressed as tight as it can to the cool tile, smearing part of his face in blood, “I _won’t_.”

 

It hurts, it feels good. He wonders what it would have been like if Keith had ever burned his flesh like this, face down, ass up, struggling to get loose. He’s far gone, lost in Keith’s all-consuming touch, so enveloped in heady smoke that he even considers breaking down and begging him to do something, anything.

 

This is the only time in his entire life that he’s ever wished Hunk wasn’t there.

 

Keith presses him flat again. Lance doesn’t even try to mask the needy whine that follows. He bucks in an attempt to throw him off, working to reform a moan into something more normal and inconspicuous, like a grunt.

 

But then, against all odds, Keith folds instead.

 

Lance feels the sharp pinch of nails around his wrists disappear, feels Keith lean back, sitting on top of his thighs as if in some premature defeat. Lance doesn’t want to think about what it means, so he moves fast.

 

Lance lifts himself up, spitting blood onto the floor, and rolls over onto his back.

 

He’s shamelessly hard, and he knows Keith can feel it, too. Either way, if he didn’t before, he’s _definitely_ feeling it now, because Lance cants his hips enough to make sure of that.

 

Thinking about nothing but his desire for vengeance, Lance throws an unpracticed punch at the same time that Keith jolts in surprise, and it makes enough sloppy contact to draw blood from his nose and split his lip.

 

But Keith barely flinches at that.

 

He jumps off him faster than Lance can register his victory, flushing deeply. Keith glares down at him, an unreadable mix of lust and anger playing in his eyes. It’s raw emotion, intoxicating and almost primal, so much so that Lance throbs in his jeans.

 

Hair a ratty, tangled mess, Keith stands there with his chest heaving, beautiful and bleeding just for him.

 

“Got you,” Lance says, pointing and grinning with glee. He’s dizzy with adrenaline and pride, and probably way too much arousal to be appropriate. “Hell yes, I _got you_.”

 

Keith stumbles back, scandalized. Hunk announces Lance’s win and helps him get to his feet, oblivious of what actually went on, oblivious of the change in atmosphere between them.

 

Before he leaves to boast to the others, Lance tells Hunk to go on ahead of him. When Keith makes a move to angrily brush past him to get away, Lance stops Keith in his tracks by grabbing a handful of his shirt.

 

Lance draws him in close. An almost drunken-tinged grin curls up his lips, approximately two blind russians in.

 

“I’ve _always_ got you, you know,” Lance practically sings, “I’ve always got you, because you’re _mine_.”

 

He winks with his good eye, shoots a weak finger gun that he flips into a middle finger, and stalks off.

 

* * *

 

It’s a few weeks, maybe, or a few months—who really knows, time in space is often irrelevant and hard to discern—by the time they get a moment alone together again. After what was deemed the ‘fiasco in the training room in which Keith and Lance lost their privileges to be alone together forever’, there understandably hadn’t been much time for sneaky one-on-one fraternizing.

 

The thing is, Keith lives for bending rules. With a snort, Lance thinks about ‘mullet codes’, thinks about how rule one of Keith’s mullet code is probably that he has _no rules_ , and if there ever were any, he would most likely be breaking them.

 

So Keith approaches Lance first, shortly after they’d gotten the malfunctioning ship working normally again. Lance is still shaking in the aftermath, ground feeling like it’s slipping out beneath him, which isn’t the most comforting metaphor to use after that particular near-death experience.

 

The way he felt when Keith saved him from the airlock only hours before, though, can’t be described in words, only in feelings that overwhelm and scare him.

 

Life is weird and fragile, the universe is cold and cruel. The whole thing launches him into an existential crisis, has him thinking about how he can lose everything he’s ever had in the time it takes to flick on a lighter.

 

And they’re living on borrowed time as it is.

 

Lance zipped off to his room at an almost comically fast level after that. In the safety of it now, he sits on his bed and rubs his wrist, trying to work out the electricity still fizzling there from Keith’s touch.

 

When Coran offered him a salve for his black eye, he’d refused. They all thought it was because he was putting on some sort of machismo front, but when his eyes met Keith’s at the time, Lance knew he knew better. It gave him some petty comfort when he saw the way Keith grit his teeth, set his jaw, and walked right out of the room. Lance wore that mark proudly, just like all the others Keith gave him.

 

Things are changing now, though, and he’s not so sure he likes it.

 

There’d been many moments between them lately, kinder and more tender towards each other between their bickering. It was as if they were healing, slowly, by being in a supportive team that was always there to buffer things if necessary.

 

Even Shiro’s eyes seemed to follow them more, calculating, as if he was putting together certain pieces to a puzzle no one knew he was making. Lance doesn’t want to think about what Keith may have revealed to him about it all.

 

Lance’s breathing is finally starting to even back out again when Keith startles him by barging into his room without so much as a knock first.

 

“I never went back to town, Lance,” Keith says preemptively, dropping a strange item onto Lance’s bed like some sort of peace offering. It takes Lance a few seconds to realize what he’s talking about. “I found an old, stale carton of cigarettes in the ruins of a home nearby my shack. I rationed them out for a long time.”

 

There’s a long pause.

 

“...You had a hoverbike,” Lance argues weakly.

 

“I did,” Keith agrees with a sigh, sitting down on the bed, but keeping a respectful distance between them, “but I literally only fixed it up and got it to work a few days before we all reunited. I barely got to test drive it first.”

 

Lance looks down at his hands. “Why are you telling me this now?” he mutters, thinking about how nothing really matters anyway when without Keith, his lifeless body would be floating around in the cold, black void of space.

 

“Look, Lance,” Keith rubs a hand over the back of his neck, sits up straight, and faces him. “I swear I would have come to see you if I could have, but I was stupid and got lost in the desert, where I had to rebuild myself from there. I’m sorry, I don’t know what else to tell you.”

 

Hesitantly, Keith reaches his hand out, and when Lance doesn’t flinch away from it, he smiles and settles it down on his knee.

 

“A lot of shit happened, and neither of us can take it back, but...” Where Keith’s hand sits, warmth radiates all over Lance’s body, and life is temporarily good again. “I was thinking about...what happened today, and I needed you to know that I really am sorry.”

 

“Keith…” Lance looks up at him, eyes tracing over the curve of Keith’s familiar smile.

 

He’s seen this smile before, and it may not give the same impression unobscured by smoke, but it’s powerful and beautiful, all the same.

 

Lance knows what he means by all this, knows in that moment that Keith’s probably been having his own existential crisis away from the prying eyes of the others, dealing with hard things quietly just how he always has.

 

Guilt wracks over Lance. He’s been such a fucking idiot lately.

 

Lance covers Keith’s hand reassuringly with his own, and when he does it, a dam finally seems to break within Keith.

 

“I dreamed about bringing you back to O’Hara’s,” he blurts, looking away, “I dreamed that I took you back to that awful motel, dreamed that I even brought you to the shack. All the time.”

 

“You did?” Lance asks, wanting to chime in with ‘ _me too me too’_ , but it’s the first he’s ever seen Keith this open, this uninhibited. He can’t find it in him to derail such a rare, private opportunity.

 

Keith nods, and gives his knee a squeeze.

 

“Of course I did,” Keith says, brushing his thumb in gentle circles over Lance’s knee. “The first thing you said when I took you to the shack was ‘this place is a piece of shit’.”

 

Watching the way Lance laughs, Keith presses on—and Lance lets him, because this is an incredibly important moment of his life.

 

Keith not only trusts him, but is _letting him in_.

 

“But we fu—” Keith glances down, cheeks darkening as he corrects himself, “We _made love_ there, though, on the porch. You said...you said you wanted to be taken over the railing, because there you’d...have the most danger of falling.”

 

Keith’s voice is fond when he says it, laughing a little, but it’s melancholic at best. Lance pauses in clasping Keith’s hand, one finger tracing over his knuckle instead.

 

“We’d go back to O’Hara’s and dance, and we’d kiss, and we were...we were happy,” Keith’s voice warbles into something so painful Lance can feel it within his own body, within his own heart, aching and jagged like lit embers branding into his skin. “So I just...I just wanted the real you to be happy.”

 

He squares his shoulders, gaze washing back over to Lance, and staying there.

 

“I would have come back for you if I could,” he says softly, “I would have come back to take you away from that shitty place in a heartbeat, and you know it.”

 

Lance drops his head, not because he wants to look away, but because it’s all crashing down on him at once. It’s overwhelming and fast and pure, so utterly Keith that Lance can feel the breakdown start around his eyes.

 

“But I also thought… ” Keith recoils his hand suddenly, moving back to put space between them again. “I thought you might hate me, so I wasn’t sure if that’d even be a good idea.” Keith’s voice gets quieter, to barely more than a soft lull against the tense air. “If I ever did get the opportunity to come back, I...I really don’t know if I’d have even gone through with it. I thought it might just make everything worse for you, and I’m sorry...sorry I thought that, too.”

 

Lance can hear the guilt laced between his words, can sense the shame of finally admitting that.

 

“I didn’t hate you, Keith,” Lance says with conviction, without hesitation, eyes set on the comforter, “I don’t hate you. I, uh. I guess I never really hated you.”

 

Lance lifts his head feebly. Keith wobbles in his blurring vision, because he knows when he sees his face, that _it’s the truth_.

 

It’s all the truth.

 

“What’s that for?” is all he can manage to ask Keith, shifting around to distract himself with the bottle Keith brought in.

 

Keith picks up the bottle and hands it to him. “I got it from Shiro. I’ve been meaning to give it to you for a while,” he explains, not looking at him anymore, “It’s some of what he uses on his really bad scars to, you know…” He inhales audibly, nodding towards Lance’s thighs as he laces his fingers together, and wrings them. “...I thought it might help.”

 

The terrible insinuation hangs there, festering, in the air.  Many different emotions broil up inside Lance—that old wick of jealousy towards Shiro, the anger of Keith thinking he doesn’t love him enough anymore that he’d be better off without his marks, that any of his scars could ever compare in meaning to Shiro’s, ones wrought from hatred, marks he never asked for and suffered greatly with in an entirely different way.

 

Still, it’s not a _completely_ insane thought, nor something that hasn’t come up for Lance before. There had been times—many times—he’d sat, quaking and tipsy in O’Hara’s filthy bathroom, wishing he could sandpaper away the scar tissue until it was smoothed out, nice and new and brown again. He’d be a liar if he said that occasionally he hadn’t been tempted to go consult a doctor about them, or buy some useless creams.

 

There were many days he spent lamenting them, being painfully reminded every time he changed, and showered and fucked, but—

 

As he’d unfortunately learned, there was no where he could completely hide from the memory of Keith, and no amount of scar removal creams would ever get rid of that fact.

 

It doesn’t matter, anyway, he thinks. He can’t ever bring himself to take away Keith’s ownership of his heart, of his love bites permanently etched into his skin. He’s been branded forever, in more ways than one.

 

Lance throws the bottle on the ground, shattering it instantly. Keith flinches back when Lance turns to him, open and bleeding, like a freshly reopened wound.

 

“I was just so _worried_ ,” Lance feels more tears build in his eyes, feels the warmth they trail down his face as they finally spill over.

 

“You _l-l-left_ me,” Lance heaves through a sob, “You _left me_ and I didn’t know what to even _do_.”

 

Keith ushers him into his arms, and murmurs hushed apologies into his neck. He clutches the back of Lance’s head, fingernails digging into his scalp, as Lance makes a sopping mess out of his T-shirt. He shushes and soothes him with gentler fingers raking through his hair, holding him like that night they first made love.

 

Fear. Letting go. Lance can just about smell it on him.

 

“I wanted to help you, you idiot,” Lance chokes, “I wanted to help you, but you disappeared, because you’re a stubborn bastard.” A few wretched cries tear from him, and Keith squeezes him tighter. “And I was _s-so_ scared, because you took off just like Shiro, and I didn’t want—”

 

It takes him a few seconds to get out his last thoughts through his own dam breaking—just like this.

 

“...I didn’t want to think that anything like that had happened to you.”

 

“I-I didn’t know,” Keith’s voice is small, disbelieving, and Lance hates that, “I didn’t think you cared that much, and I was just…” _In a bad place_ , Lance thinks Keith might be thinking at the same time.

 

It’s silent for a while besides Lance’s cries. Keith holds him through it. He smells even nicer, feels warmer, than Lance remembers. And he’s real against him, alive and well, soft and as good-smelling as the day Lance first found refuge in Keith’s arms.

 

“They kicked me out back then, Lance, because I wanted answers about Shiro,” Keith says to the air, after Lance begins to calm into small, shuddering sniffles, “That night I...last saw you.”

 

Lance _believes_ that, knows that’s the truth the moment he hears it.

 

In the back of his mind, Lance had about guessed as much. There had been too many suspicious circumstances surrounding the whole affair. “Discipline issue”, his ass.

 

His head reels regardless. He can’t let it go. The displaced anger he’s been taking out on Keith instantly transfers to every faculty member in the Garrison who would even make such a horrible decision in the first place—booting their best rising ace pilot during a time where he was just being _human_ , where he was grieving and trying to keep everything together as best as he knew how.

 

Keith sounds strained. His grip tightens to an almost painful level around his hip, drawing Lance in as close as possible.

 

“They kicked me out and told me to leave without even _seeing_ you first, and of course I wasn’t going to fucking do that.” He sucks in a large breath, and Lance can almost feel the temperature of his skin rise. “Those assholes—”

 

“Keith,” Lance says softly, feeling like Keith shouldn’t be the only one doing the comforting here. “It’s okay—”

 

“No, it’s not,” Keith cuts him off, “It wasn’t, I should have just told you.”

 

Keith has clearly been torn up about all this for a long, long time. Lance has never felt like a bigger fool.

 

“But I...I didn’t know what else to do. It felt like I lost both you and Shiro at the same time, like I lost everything that ever meant anything to me, and I…”

 

Keith squeezes him again, and it’s impossible to tell who’s shaking more now.

 

“I just wanted you to have one last night where you could pretend everything was going to be okay before it all came crashing down on the both of us.”

 

Lance’s heart leaps up into his throat. He feels like there’s nothing more he can say, either, nothing more he can do than try to make this shitshow right again. He’s been acting like a spoiled child, all while Keith had only been trying to consider his feelings.

 

Lance sits back, and Keith looks at him questioningly, watching as Lance pulls out from the shelter of his arms. He seems disappointed, winces like he’s preparing for Lance to deck him or something.

 

But Lance kisses him.

 

Without urgency, he kisses Keith, cupping his chin in his hand and tipping it up to press their mouths closer together.

 

It’s slow, muddled, and in a daze, they break it off not long after. There’s no tongue, no blood, just sweetness, something nostalgic enough for Lance to feel properly short of breath. For that split second, their foreheads stay together, and they lock eyes. Lance holds him there, tracing a finger along his jawline, and smiles until it’s contagious.

 

They don’t talk about it. Keith already knows.

 

“I’m still really mad,” Lance whispers, curling a string of Keith’s hair around his finger. “Not at you, but you know.” Lance shrugs into him. “In general, because it took us such a long time to stop being stupid.”

 

Keith drags him down, so that they’re lying on their sides facing each other on the bed. Lance lets his arms fold around Keith’s waist, and snuggles in as close as he can to the warmth of his body.

 

“I’m still pretty upset, too,” Keith replies, sliding a knee between his legs almost instinctively. Neither of them mention the sudden suggestion of it all, the easy intimacy that lies there.

 

“I’m sorry, Keith.” Lance squeezes him, nuzzling his face further into his chest. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’ve been way more of a dick, and the way I’ve been treating you isn’t okay at all,” Lance sighs, “It was just...I was just stupid, and it was hard.”

 

“Yeah,” Keith laughs, “It was.”

 

“But I know now, that it...it wasn’t your fault.” Lance gulps, feeling the tickle of Keith’s warm breath as it coasts near his forehead. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault. We just got too close, too soon, and that made it worse when shit got crazy.”

 

“I liked being close to you, though,” Keith whispers, stringing his fingers through his hair. He chuckles as he pushes his lips to the top of Lance’s head. Lance can feel the vibrations of his words against his scalp. “It was nice.”

 

“...It was,” Lance agrees, relaxing into him and letting his eyes slip shut. He could have died earlier like this, always with Keith’s hands on him at the last second.

 

He wouldn’t have minded it ending that way, really.

 

Keith’s hand trails, as if in slow motion, to his chin, where he brushes over Lance’s lips, feather light and soft. His fingers continue to tread along the line of his throat, pressing a little harder when Lance swallows as he slides them to his collarbone. The even warmer hand at his hip squeezes him, before rubbing a thumb curiously beneath the hem of his shirt.

 

Eyes fluttering open, Lance stiffens right back up.

 

“Sorry,” Keith pulls away, looking embarrassed, putting space between their bodies in an instant, “If it’s not okay, I—”

 

“No,” Lance says, almost inaudibly, but he knows that Keith heard him.

 

Keith cocks his head to the side, raising one brow. “...No what?”

 

“No, as in, I _want you_ to keep touching me,” Lance clarifies, sitting up in a flash. He licks his lips, watching the familiar flush of red fan out over Keith’s cheeks. “Yeah, I definitely want you to touch me now. Like a lot.”

 

Keith doesn’t move, staring at him like a deer caught in the headlights, so Lance grabs his wrist. He brings the palm of Keith’s hand to his chest.

 

“I…” Keith says, voice hoarse. His eyes flick over Lance’s body, taking in the suggestion of his posture, the deep lidding of his eyes. He looks like he’s thinking, weighing his options.

 

Keith purses his lips before sucking back a breath. “...Where?” he finally asks, eyes dark, fingers twitching into Lance’s shirt.

 

“Everywhere _,_ ” Lance says, grinning, and clutches Keith’s wrist harder. He subtly arches his back as he stares into Keith’s eyes, “...I want you to touch me _everywhere,_ Keith.”

 

Keith barely gets the chance to grapple in the fabric before Lance is guiding him down, letting him slip his fingers back underneath the hem of his shirt. Keith shakes against his skin. His fingers curl where they lay on his abdomen, right above the waistband of his pants. Almost unoticeably, he dips the edge of his forefinger into the band.

 

“I cared, Keith, and I still do,” Lance says lowly, sliding Keith’s hand higher up his bare chest. “A lot.”

 

Lance releases him, and Keith doesn’t pull away, just presses hard against his thundering heartbeat. “And for fuck’s sake, you just saved my life, and I’m so fucking turned on that if you don’t _seriously_ touch me _right now,_ I’m probably going to scre—”

 

Lips cover his, hot and fast, with enough force that Lance is thrown to the wall. The hand already under his shirt shoots up and starts rubbing, thumbing roughly over a nipple.

 

“That’s _it_ , baby, _yes_ ,” Lance moans after Keith tugs his lip down, after he begins smothering his neck in a million desperate, fiery kisses, “Just like that, _yes, yes, yes_.”

 

Hands landing on his hips, Lance slides Keith’s shirt up, fingers tracing over the expanse of the soft, but firmly defined muscle of his stomach. An achingly familiar feeling stored within the memory of his searching hands, achingly not enough to feel without seeing clearly.

 

Lance fumbles to pull off the fabric as Keith sinks his teeth into his collarbone, somehow urges Keith to yank it over his head before shedding his own shirt. Keith is on him again in no time, mouth landing on one nipple unexpectedly, and Lance throws his head back against the wall as it pebbles with the velvety, wet swipe of his tongue.

 

The skin-on-skin after so long, the feeling of Keith’s lips and hands on him where they rightfully belong, has pleasure consuming him from the inside-out before he even draws in that first shaky hitch of breath.

 

Straddling him, Keith roams his palms over his chest and down to his hips, watching Lance with an intensity that brings Lance back to a better, simpler time. He touches him everywhere like he asked, and then some, grinding in slow, sensual motions over him.

 

Lance gasps with every roll of his hips, with every pleased, ragged exhale he draws out from Keith. Their kissing quickly turns heated and clumsy, sloppy and desperate. Overwhelmed by sensation, Lance whimpers, cock twitching impatiently, cramped and beading with precum in his jeans.

 

It’s been too long, much too long since someone has taken care of him in all the ways he’s ever needed, in all the ways he’s ever wanted. Lance’s thoughts race and mingle with the heat of emotions, of that rapturous spark that lights up Keith’s eyes that he hasn’t seen in all the time they’ve been reunited.

 

He reminds himself that this feeling could be as fleeting as that first sear upon flesh. This could be their last kiss, and he knows Keith can feel that, because he works his lips open like it is. A promise to him, because Keith never goes back on his promises.

 

Bruising, forceful, that dizzying dominance that makes Lance sweat and writhe and shake.

 

He pushes his tongue in, swipes it against his teeth, siphons the breath straight out of his lungs like he’s the last cigarette Keith will ever have the pleasure of taking.

 

And it could—could be their last shot at reconciliation, because who knows what craziness tomorrow may bring within a war that makes no such sweet promises.

 

Tiring of the teasing, Keith lifts himself from his lap and slams him back until his breath is on the cusp of breaking. He slips between Lance’s legs as they wrap around him. When Keith clenches his fingers into his thighs, nails digging in tight, Lance rocks forward.

 

“Feels good, _yes_ ,” Lance hisses as Keith nudges his legs further apart, and marks up the side of his neck. Their bare chests slide against each other, and sometimes Lance can feel the satisfying twinge of Keith’s erratic heartbeat.

 

Lance lets his legs drift out, toes hanging more near Keith’s ears as he slides his back down the wall and angles his hips up high. His abs tremble with the strain of the position, but he loves it.

 

He's  _always_ loved it, spreading himself for Keith.

 

Keith gasps at the trusting, submissive position, looming and predatory between the window of his legs. He palms Lance through his jeans, then grips the swollen outline of his cock and squeezes, _hard_.

 

“F-fuck,” Lance stammers when Keith presses his thumb against the head, and he latches onto Keith’s neck and returns the favor, worrying the area between his teeth as he wraps his arms around it. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

 

Keith lets out a shuddering moan of his own. There’s one hand snaking around to his ass, another on the tread of his zipper, when Lance drags his lips up and sighs happily into Keith’s ear, “God, I missed you _so much_.”

 

Lance doesn’t know if it’s something he said or something he did, but Keith stops as suddenly as he started. Lance bucks his hips up, but the friction gripping him releases. The searing hot skin against him disappears, and he’s never felt so cold.

 

“Keith..?” Lance asks, confused in the fog of arousal as he pushes himself up on his elbows. Keith is frozen above him, eyes wide in something akin to fear. “You alright?”

 

“I can’t, fuck, this is a bad idea,” Keith draws away lightning-quick, and Lance near about cries again, “I’m sorry, shit, I’m so sorry, but I’ve got to g-go.”

 

Keith is out the door in a flash without another word, and Lance would probably laugh in any other circumstance seeing the way he stiffly tries to run, but he can’t bring himself to do so with how achingly hard and throbbing he still is, with how empty he still feels.

 

Lance brings himself to climax with a frustrated groan, one thumb digging into a scar, Keith’s name on his lips.

 

The room smells like smoke afterwards.

 

* * *

 

Lance is in his room when there’s a small knock on his door. It’s a quiet, careful thing, and he looks up in confusion, as he knows it surely isn’t Hunk, and definitely not Keith.

 

Shiro appears, standing where the sensor’s allowed him entrance, smiling softly. “Hey, Lance. Is it alright if I come in for a second?”

 

Lance morosely nods. He hasn’t seen Keith since the incident last night, and it’s a little annoying how easy it is for someone to disappear on the hull of a giant ship when they’re actively trying to avoid you.

 

In the palm of Shiro’s metal hand is a tiny cardboard box, nondescript and plain. It’s taped up and fairly worn around the edges, a little wrinkled here and there as if it was shuffled around a lot. Shiro walks in and places it beside him as he sits by Lance on the bed. His eyes are thoughtful, concerned.

 

“Hey,” Shiro says, turning to him, voice low. “Is everything alright between you and Keith?” he asks, diving right into what Lance fears most.

 

“Why?” Lance raises an eyebrow, suspicious. “What...what did he tell you?”

 

He smothers a cough into his hand, trying to backtrack over that one, despite the fact Shiro clearly heard him. “I mean, why do you think anything happened? He’s a jerk, as usual. Nothing new there.”

 

Lance scuffs his shoe on the tile. Shiro considers him with a tilt of his head.

 

“Well, he seems upset. He came to my room this morning pretty shaken about something. I tried to talk to him, but he just gave me this box and told me to give it to you, then left,” Shiro explains, sighing exasperatedly, as if that’s an occurrence so common at this point between them it might as well be happening every day. “He didn’t tell me anything else.”

 

Lance eyes the box, glaring, anticipating that the mysterious contents will already offend him. He crosses his arms and turns away from Shiro. “If Keith’s upset, it has nothing to do with me. I don’t know anything.”

 

“You seem upset, too,” Shiro points out, and that soft, knowing smile is back on his face again when Lance looks over to him, surprised.

 

Shiro lays his flesh hand lightly on Lance’s shoulder, and it grounds him. Lance can feel his own heart fluttering oddly in his chest, and he shifts his legs, uncomfortably aware of how close they are.

 

“What do you care, anyway?” Lance jerks away from him, wincing at his choice of words to someone he often shows the utmost respect to. But pain is still fresh all over him, and as usual, he’s saying a lot of things before he’s really thinking about it. “It’s not your problem.”

 

Lance expects to hear some tired speech about how ‘getting along and bonding’ is important for Voltron, how if he and Keith don’t patch things up everyone’s lives could be in jeopardy, _blah blah blah_.

 

He prepares for it, because that’s what’s always being said, but this time it doesn’t come.

 

“I care, because I’m not stupid, Lance,” Shiro says, “I don’t know what might have happened between you two before we became defenders of the universe, but I’d have to be blind to not notice the way he looks at you when you don’t think he is.”

 

Lance’s whole body runs hot. Every one of his muscles tightens. Does Shiro _know_?

 

“...Did Keith tell you?” he asks, quietly, after a few moments of silence.

 

There’s no way he can suffer through any more days plagued by the thought of Keith possibly breaking his trust, of sharing intimate details of their lives with someone else, even if it is Shiro, a person Lance wouldn’t mind finding out if he had to.

 

Shiro’s brows draw together, and some of the tension in Lance’s shoulders slides out.

 

“Did he tell me what?”

 

Lance pointedly looks to the ground as Shiro waits for him to answer. Lance doesn’t, so Shiro continues speaking, and doesn’t press it. “All I know, is that personally, it seems like something rough happened between you guys in the past. But you clearly were very close once, I think.”

 

Shiro’s smile falters, sounding more uncertain. “At least, that’s my theory.” He gives a sheepish laugh.

 

“Theories aren’t facts,” Lance grumbles, hugging his arms around his waist.

 

Shiro continues staring at him. “They’re pretty close,” he says, voice light, and Lance raises his gaze back to him. He’s smiling, warm and inviting, but Lance shivers.

 

“Well, but...okay, if we’re hypothetically speaking, then,” Lance wonders aloud, unable to get this twisting, gnarled feeling out of his chest, “If _hypothetically speaking_ , Keith and I _did_ have a fight, and I might, you know,” Lance draws in a long breath, “hypothetically think he hates me?”

 

Lance ends it like a question, unsure himself what’s even going on with them anymore.

 

“What would you, um...hypothetically suggest I do, then?”

 

Shiro’s smile rounds up a little more, gentle, relaxed.

 

“Hypothetically? I’d suggest you just go talk to him,” Shiro offers, leaning back on his palms, eyes shot towards the ceiling. “Keith’s a pretty approachable person if you keep yourself calm and come at him in a rational manner.”

 

Lance doesn’t feel the usual twinge of jealousy about that, just sadness. It’s funny, he thinks, because he’s anything but rational when it comes to Keith.

 

“I mean, hypothetically speaking, if you _were_ close, I’m sure you already know that,” There’s a playful edge to Shiro’s words as he glances to the side at Lance, “But maybe it helps to—  hypothetically—hear it from someone else that Keith can be kind of intimidating, and I understand feeling discouraged by how closed off he can get.”

 

Lance snorts. It’s the understatement of the century, but the way Shiro says it, like it’s something he has a hard time dealing with as well, makes him feel comforted. Shiro can relate, really relate to the frustration, and that’s something in all this time, Lance has never considered. He’s been so involved with himself, he’s completely ignored Keith’s interactions and relationships with others.

 

He’s completely ignored _Keith’s feelings_ , he thinks with a start. Stupidly, it’s always only ever been about himself.

 

“He’s had a hard past, you know he’s not easy to trust others,” Shiro says, “and _hypothetically_ , I wouldn’t take it personally. I think…” Shiro’s smile twists into the barest hints of a frown, “I think that he just needs some reassurance about certain things sometimes.”

 

Lance nods, numbly. He stares at his hands, folded in his lap, for a long time. Shiro sits with him there in the silence, calmly, an unobtrusive presence.

 

“...Thanks, Shiro,” Lance finally says, raising his eyes, “For, you know. Formulating hypotheses with me.”

 

Shiro gives a small chuckle before he says, “Don’t mention it. Just…” He looks around nervously, as if someone might be there to overhear him. “Just don’t tell him I, uh, talked to you about this. He might get pretty mad, knowing I’m revealing his ‘secrets’.”

 

They both laugh, and it’s carefree, easy. Lance feels a lot lighter, like he can do anything, like maybe he really can approach Keith and things can be worked out for the better.

 

“Lips are sealed, good sir.” Uncurling himself, Lance salutes him. He straightens out his back, bouncing in anticipation on the mattress.

 

Shiro pats his shoulder before he stands up, stretching to the ceiling. He puts a hand to his hip, and Lance tries to keep eye contact.

 

“Look, I’m not going to get between you two,” Shiro says, holding out his arms as he speaks, sounding much more serious than earlier, “There’s obviously some things you need to work out, whatever they may be.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Lance sighs, forcing a smile and shrugging. “Whatever.”

 

Shiro flashes his own genuine smile back. “Just know that I’m here if you need me, Lance,” he offers, heading towards the door, “I care, because I care about you, too. Okay?”

 

Lance can feel heat sitting heavy enough in his cheeks that he wonders if Shiro can see it. He tries his best to croak out a weak, “O-okay.”

 

Shiro takes that as his cue to leave, and he presses his foot over the sensor.

 

“Hey, wait,” Lance calls to him, and Shiro looks over his shoulder. “What’s in the box?”

 

“Not sure,” Shiro says, shrugging, one hand on the archway of the door, “I didn’t open it.”

 

Lance watches the door long after Shiro leaves.

 

* * *

 

Lance actually sits down and _thinks_ , thinks about Keith, thinks about where he might be hiding on the ship. And it’s dumb, because when he takes some simple time to reflect, he knows exactly where to find him.

 

He wasn’t expecting to be able to get in, though.

 

“Huh,” Lance marvels, eyes roaming over the glittering surface of Red’s giant mouth, “Interesting.”

 

Her head is smaller than Blue’s, but her interior is shinier, brighter with the disorienting mix of red reflecting off chrome walls. She’s pretty, in a very untouchable way, much like her paladin.

 

Lance knocks on the door frame when he gets to the cockpit and sees Keith, sulking in the pilot’s chair. He clears his throat loudly. When Keith lifts his head and turns around, startled, the first thing he does is groan and hold his head in his hands.

 

“Got your present,” Lance announces, slinking towards him and shaking the box, grin a sliver of mischief. “But sending it by Shiro mail order service? Now that’s just lazy, Keith.”

 

“He’s easier to talk to,” Keith says, shrinking in Red’s seat. He props his forehead up with one hand, other palm covering his embarrassed face. “I didn’t just pump and dump him.”

 

Lance smothers a giggle behind his hand as he comes up to Keith’s chair and settles his hands on the back of it, staring down at the sad ball of Keith from behind. “I don’t think what we did could qualify as going into the realm of ‘pumping’, and you didn’t _really_ dump me, but...fair point.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Keith mutters mostly to his hand, which he flops to his lap afterwards, like a fish trying to get off of dry land. “It—it didn’t feel right. It felt like something was missing.”

 

Lance feels affection, empathy, run deep in his veins. He heaves a fond sigh as he comes around to face him instead. Cocking his hip out, he leans back on the control panel and crosses his legs and arms.

 

“It’s fine, Keith, I’m not mad about it.” Keith raises his head at that, looking taken aback. “I was just worried I might have done something wrong.” Insecurity overtakes Lance, and he unfolds his arms, thinking back and wondering if his words were the trigger. “Shit, I did something wrong, didn’t I?”

 

 _I missed you so much._ Lance clenches his fists, feeling like an idiot as he considers how that could have been a potentially sensitive topic for Keith.

 

“No, no, not at all,” Keith rushes to reply, curling his legs up to his chest and wrapping his arms around his knees. He sets his chin on them. “It wasn’t you, really, I got…”

 

Keith turns away, furrowing his brows, unable to complete that thought. The barest hints of a flush are sitting on his cheeks, and under the low reflective light of Red, his eyes and hair stand in stark, dark contrast.

 

“Cold mullet?” Lance suggests, motioning with his arms for Keith to get up.

 

Keith doesn’t pick up on it, only wrinkles his nose as he faces him again. “What?” he asks, clearly confused.

 

Sighing, Lance runs a hand through his hair in feigned exasperation, pushing himself up from his leaning against the panel. “Like ‘ _cold feet_ ’, Keith. Come on, get with it.”

 

Keith frowns. “...But that’s really dumb.”

 

“I know,” Lance steps away from the control panel, holding his arms out in a welcoming hug, “but it’s true. Now, come here already and let me make it all better.”

 

Slowly, Keith unfolds himself and stands up, taking a few cautious steps forward. He stops abruptly like a child unable to continue taking their first steps out of fear, looking like he’s considering retreating to the safety of his crutch instead. So Lance closes the space between them, drawing Keith tightly into his arms before he can deny himself the pleasure.

 

He’s warm, soft against him, hair tickling his chin as Lance lets him tuck his face into his chest. He smiles as Keith’s arms hook around his waist. To be able to finally hold him like this, no animosity between them, only understanding, is a strong emotional relief that almost has Lance crying again.

 

He runs his fingers through his hair, squeezes him, soothingly rubs the small of his back. Keith shakes into him a little at first, but eventually the tension in his stiff body begins to lessen, and he sighs, content.

 

When they part, Lance with one hand still firmly on Keith’s shoulder, he cups Keith’s face for just long enough to sneak in a chaste kiss to his forehead. Lance flips open the ‘present’ Keith gave him again, revealing the weathered and crumpled box from inside. It’s only slightly smaller than the one Keith packed it up in. Keith flushes deeper, rubbing his arm as he looks up at Lance in question, as if wondering if everything is still okay.

 

“So, where did it come from, Mr. Mystery?” Lance looks at the familiar packaging, the shitty brand he’s felt numerous times pressed against him from tight jean pockets. “Was it one of the ones you found? That must have been a weird coincidence, this is your favorite brand, isn’t it?”

 

Keith shakes his head. His voice is a flutter of a whisper, like he’s about to unleash a deep-seated secret, one he never in a million years planned to reveal. “No, it’s the one I...left the Garrison with. I wrapped it in that box, put it in my utility pack, and just...left it there.”

 

“What?” Lance asks with wonder, still not comprehending all of what this means. “Why the hell didn’t you smoke them?”  

 

He can appreciate the metaphor, the symbolism behind it for their relationship, but he knows how badly Keith must have wanted to smoke—and even when he had the ability to do it, then and now, he _didn’t_.

 

It doesn’t make sense.

 

“I couldn’t,” Keith says, turning his head and scratching the back of his neck. “Was my special pack. Stale ass _Lucky Strikes_ that I was…”

 

Keith bites his lip. “Whatever, they were for you,” he sighs, looking a little annoyed about having to admit that, and it’s the cutest thing Lance has ever seen. “I was saving them to share with you, okay? Cause it was...it was the first brand I ever smoked with you, and part of that pack went to burning your—you know. Ugh.”

 

Keith moves away and slumps back against the control panel. He looks disgusted from having to say that, but Lance can only feel happiness bursting between the seams of his rib cage.

 

Tracing over the worn lines of the box, he remembers this pack now. Another night in another shitty inn. The last night they fucked, to be exact—he took two hits to the hip, and Keith impressively smoked through thrusting into him.

 

Lance’s hair had been riddled with flakes of ash afterwards.

 

He flips open the lid, counts seven cigarettes, six facing down, one up. Tracing over the upward facing one, Lance recalls how it’s the lucky he flipped for him, when he kissed Keith in the calm moments afterwards and they opened a new pack.

 

 _This_ pack.

 

Lance brings his nose close to it and inhales, feeling warmth and serenity sinking over him at the familiar waft of tobacco. Keith saved them for him. Keith really did plan to come back for him.

 

“Well,” Lance smiles, moving his arms in towards his chest and curling a finger as he lets himself fall back onto the pilot’s chair, gesturing _come here_ , _baby,_ “Now’s your chance then, isn’t it?”

 

Lance puts the pack up to his lips, smiling over it like they’re the rim of a glass of whiskey.

 

“Come on, Reginald,” he laughs, enjoying Keith’s flustered face as he splays his legs out wide over either side of the seat, “Spoil me again, won’t you?”

 

Lance knows it’s all over when he brings a finger to his lips, hooking it the tiniest bit in, and flutters his lashes.

 

Keith doesn’t hesitate this time, on him at breakneck speed, with that passion, that intensity that has Lance’s nerves buzzing with interest. It feels amazing when he straddles him, but it feels even better when he yanks both of Lance’s arms up with one hand, pinning his wrists above his head and pressing them to the top of the chair.

 

Lance can feel Keith’s body heat, shockingly almost double the temperature it previously was, as he seats himself in his lap. Keith slips his hand within the arch of his back, bending him so his hips are right on the edge of the seat. He tucks his knees in on either side of him, snug and tight.

 

“We always did want to fuck in the simulation,” Keith whispers into his ear, tugging his teeth along it as he grinds into him. “Looks like this is the next best thing, huh.”

 

“Shit,” Lance moans, deep from his chest.

 

Keith wastes no time in ravenously smashing their lips together, tasting him, biting and sucking all that he can get. He pushes hard, Lance pushes back, groaning between his parting lips. It’s messy and good, saliva dripping and gathering in thick strings between them with the inconsistent rhythm they set.

 

“Can you do it now?” Lance faintly hears himself asking, pressing his lips to Keith’s collarbone, struggling against his bonds. He squeezes the pack between slipping, sweaty fingers, trying to hold on, but he can’t wait any longer. “Pretty please, do it, do it.”

 

“I, um…” Keith pulls back, pausing in rubbing him, and says quietly, “...I—I don’t have a lighter. I forgot to put it in my pack when we set out to the caves that day.”

 

Lance blinks at him. He almost can’t comprehend those ridiculous words. Keith releases his wrists, and he trails his hands to Keith’s shoulders, kneading them and laughing as he presses their foreheads together.

 

“Keith, babe, we’re in an alien warship within a spaceship filled with all sorts of weird weapons and gadgets. I’m sure there’s _something_ around we can use to light a goddamn cigarette.”

 

“Yeah, well,” Keith grunts, shifting himself in Lance’s lap, “It’s not like I haven’t thought about it. It’s just, you don’t know if there’s some sort of like...fire alarm that will go off in here from the smoke...”

 

“Ohhh,” Lance says, understanding hitting him, “You scared to be found out?” He waggles his eyebrows.

 

“No,” Keith sits back, shrugging, “I was more afraid to find out what kind of crazy fire alarms Alteans might have, especially in their giant, sentient mecha lions.”

 

“Ah,” Lance says, trying to ignore the uncomfortable strain in his jeans, “That’s...actually understandable. I hadn’t thought of that.”

 

“Yeah,” Keith agrees, nodding and looking uncertain about where to go from there.

 

There’s a long, awkward pause. Lance fills it with whistling.

 

“So…” Lance draws out, tapping his fingers against the armrest, “Do you like, maybe wanna find out anyway?”

 

Keith smiles and slips out of his lap. Dragging himself to his feet, he says, “You know what?” He tilts his head, and if Lance is reading him right, he looks like he’s finally about to say _fuck it all_. “I’m glad you asked, because I kind of do.”

 

The smile he flashes at Lance sends shivers of raw desire down his spine. He _knows_ that look, that look he gets right before he’s about to be pinned to a gritty brick wall in the hidden shadows of the sultry, summer night.

 

Lance can’t find his voice, let alone make any of his limbs move. It’s fine, though, because Keith does it for him. There’s a moment of contemplative silence before a large smile lights up Keith’s whole face. “Hold on, I have an idea.”

 

“Red.” He brushes his hand over her control panel, soothing, and even Lance can feel her purr of approval, a rumble behind his eyelids that’s harsher, more insistent than Blue’s. “Little help, girl?”

 

Firepower, right—Keith has _firepower_.

 

Keith closes his eyes, feeding her something that makes her rumbling grow louder, into something more excitable. They both stare, astonished, as a small box opens on the control panel, and a tiny, contained flame comes to life over it.

 

Keith licks his lips at the same time Lance does. “Very nice.”

 

Eager doesn’t even begin to describe the way Keith strides over, fingers clutching a stick, and rolls it into the flame. His lips wrap around and tug, like it hasn’t been over a year since he’s done this around Lance, like it hasn’t been however long since he’s had his last fix. Muscle memory works easily over the both of them—Keith with his well-deserved rush, Lance with the almost Pavlovian response of his pants tightening.

 

Sighing, he sucks back for a while, and Lance counts the seconds it takes for him to breathe out, because he knows that’s when Keith will look at him and smile.

 

The only thing that changes in the formula is that Keith begins coughing after he does it, his lungs unpracticed, not able to take in what he usually could.

 

“Still tastes like shit.” Pulling a face, Keith’s eyes flick to the smoke, as it gathers and fills the room at three times the volume he breathed out, somehow. “Worse now, since it’s so dry and stale. Gross. What I wouldn’t give for a decent cigarette again someday.”

 

“Whoa,” Lance gasps, watching the smoke swirl, how it sways and curves in the still space, suspended by ancient magic and time, “That’s so fucking cool. How are you not freaking out about this?”

 

Keith watches it, too, but he doesn’t seem as impressed, or in shock. His eyes still spark with something, though, probably with how much Lance knows he likes to watch the smoke.

 

“Not the first time I’ve had her do smoke tricks.” Keith grins, advancing towards him and rolling the stick playfully between his fingers.

 

Red purrs one last time into their minds, something reassuring and comforting, and then falls away from them, silent.

 

“Worried about fire alarms, my ass,” Lance snorts, matching his grin with a raise of his eyebrows. He folds himself back in the seat as Keith stops in front of him.

 

Keith nods to Lance, entire demeanor morphing into something far more dangerous. “Clothes off. _Now_.”

 

Lance has never stripped faster.

 

Now naked and waiting, his eyes lid as he takes in the sight of Keith, making himself comfortable on the leather that instantly sticks his sweaty skin to the seat. Keith is observing him quietly, pretending to act aloof in the way he knows Lance likes it, though the tease seems to strain both of them.

 

The tension of what might come next hangs in the air, broiling and pleasant.

 

Keith takes another drag, drawing closer, step-by-excruciatingly-long-step. Lance holds his breath with him.

 

Then smoke is billowing into his face, up his mouth and nose, blinding him and heightening the rest of his senses. It doesn’t hurt somehow, but it makes him feel light-headed and tenfold as infatuated as before.

  
  
“Where do you want it, then?” Keith breathes into his ear, appearing within the parting clouds to reach out and pump him slowly. He ashes right into his hair, smirking as he does. Lance’s eyes focus in on the receding lit end, heart thudding a mile a minute within his rib cage.

 

“Here, of course,” Lance moves Keith’s hand to his chest, and Keith splays his fingers out over his drumming heartbeat, resting the side of his cigarette upon it. “Over my heart.”

 

Lance grabs Keith’s other wrist, pulling it from his cock, and bringing it to his throat instead. He waits until Keith realizes what he wants, waits so that the moment Keith is wrapping his fingers around him tight, it hits him so hard he’s already breathless.

 

Keith smiles, laughs. “Anything for you,” he murmurs.

 

“You’re beautiful,” Lance confesses through the clench of his white knuckled fingers as they flex in, “You’re beautiful, and I love you.”

 

And then the burning end crashes into his chest.

 

Keith breathes out at the sight; Lance breathes him in. Keith steals his air again when he works his lips back over him, grinding the butt until Lance can feel his love finally permanently searing its way into his heart.

 

His ashtray heart—meant for Keith, designed for Keith, to always use as he pleases.

 

He doesn’t realize he’s screaming in euphoria until his throat is burning with the effort and Keith is releasing it, futilely trying to shut him up with wide, panicky eyes.

 

“Lance,” Keith says, strained, “ _Shit_ , god that’s hot, but not so loud, the others could be nearby and—”

 

“Let them hear, oh my _god_ , come on, _who cares_ ,” Lance whines, even though the still-rational side of his brain knows how embarrassing that would actually be.

 

“Sorry, Lance,” Keith grins, popping the cigarette back between his lips and clapping his palm over Lance’s mouth, relieving that worry, “but I really don’t want to have any awkward talks over breakfast about this.”

 

All Lance thinks as he cums with a muffled scream into Keith’s palm, is that history repeats itself.

 

Just. Like. This.

**Author's Note:**

> What caused me to finally finish this monstrosity? I got two concussions over this past week, so one could say that inspiration, quite literally, struck me.
> 
> Also imo, Lucky Strikes do kinda suck ass, but they are fairly expensive. So please understand that Keith really was spoiling Lance, while of course, Lance secretly liked the taste.
> 
>    
> I bet u all thought i was gonna have keith’s fav brand be reds...and well, while i’ll admit i was tempted, tbh he just seems like a lucky strike kinda guy


End file.
